


Hidden Inside the Glade

by jazzetry



Series: The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Also kind of, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Domestic Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol, Established Relationship, Everyone is Dead, Experimental Style, Exploration, Extended Metaphors, Geographical Isolation, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Mystery, No Dialogue, POV Outsider, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Secret Relationship, Secrets, again kind of, almost nameless characters, and it's around baekhyun and chanyeol, baekhyun and chanyeol are dead, but idk, but they're part of the mystery, i really don't know how to describe it in tags, kind of, maybe spoilers in the tags, nature vs industry, runaways - Freeform, there's a town mystery, visions of the undead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:28:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24658351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzetry/pseuds/jazzetry
Summary: Flowing fields on a misty day are cut into by outsiders.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Series: The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781482
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Hidden Inside the Glade

Densely packed forest cut off a colorful glade from the greys of the quickly urbanizing surroundings. Through the trees, there are still glimpses of colorlessness shining into the ephemeral beauty of nature, breaking the illusion of true isolation with a crystal image of the outside. 

Small disturbances run around the forest, breaching the farthest layer of trees before returning to the grey, their pursuit of that hidden beauty and mystery all for naught as they reach out into the verdant border of the city and come out without a single discovery outside of a few branches dangling too low,hiding away in their hair and clothes. 

No one knows the true distance between them and the clearing, only understanding that the slow chipping away of trees brings them one step closer to finding it. And the reality of the clearing is more of a tale than truth, melding together with whatever else is spread around in surreptitious conversations, the whispers echoing into the skies. Very few have actually traversed into the meadow and witnessed the blend of colorful flowers beside a dilapidated cabin, molded over through years of absence, and speculated the origin of the house. 

Overgrown grass covers the surface of the grotto and surrounds the cottage with an easily permeable border between it and the trees. Those who believe the reports from seemingly truthless mouths speculate the origin and current occupation of the house. None can enter, but some who’ve seen it suggest the impression of a figure in the covered window while others have a firm stance on the complete absence of all people, and others who’ve never visited the scene claim a falsehood of the supernatural. 

Some speculate it’s the doing of a missing person who’d found the clearing through sheer desperation. Maybe the stench of death is easily smothered by the blossoming of flowers. Maybe it’s just the remnants of long ago, a seemingly lackadaisical house severed off from the rest of society by a hermit whose body lay across the floors or the bed, and the creaky age of the still standing cabin shows the appearance of life through the curtains.

Pictures don’t lend a lot to the existence of the figure in the window, shaky motion lines decorating the images with no indication of anything. Muddy tracks make their way into blurry pictures, the only true remnants of the cabin, the supposed people, and the flowers are a rainbow blue that melds into a shaky green. 

But the city is slowly exposing the grotto, chipping away at the outermost layer of trees with increasing vigor. It’s only a matter of time when the secrets of the hidden clearing reveals itself to the rest of the monotone world, the technicolor withering into the same darkness that looms over the city. 

Even with the ugly sawing noises scraping against thick bark and resounding thuds across the slightest path into the city as cones begin to lead up to construction, many aren’t perturbed or turned off by an opportunity to expose the truth to the mystery that had been circulating for years prior.

The more determined of those living in the city prepare more. They bring supplies, higher duty equipment, but to do what? Expose the last glimpses of undisturbed nature to the carcinogenic and noxious air of the city? Show that none of them are raving lunatics? 

Figures donning all black clothing make their way through the dangerously unnavigable maze of trees, gravely unprepared for the lack of clarity in an unpaved path. The detritus remains undisturbed even as the travelers sink in slightly to the loose ground, remnants of rainfall exposing themselves with every step. 

And children lay to the edges of the forest, nearing the truly dangerously dizzying portion of forest too far for those that live nearby to look over with watchful eyes. 

Many enter under the pretense of self-entitled security or hapless curiosity, but most leave having not caught a single glimpse of the house or the field of beautiful flowers. Only the confusing path of nearly identical trees and truly terrifying notion of being lost forever stand in the way of reckless exploration. 

But through the impossibly thick fog and tightly packed trees, there is definitely a clearing to reward such a long plight, but the payoff is the sight of overgrown grass and flowers with the only silver lining being the mossy veranda jutting off of the cabin, the seeping wood broken to reveal the dirt beneath. And slowly, flowers have begun blooming from the newly exposed soil. 

Eventually, someone  _ does _ manage to take a photo of the scene and the somewhat younger flowers far into the distance.

There has been movement recently, but by whom? Other visitors trying to catch a glimpse into a secluded life? Others trying to get a photo of the beauty with the perfect angle of contrast between the ominously hazy forest and the bright flowers? Animals sneaking around carefully in the deepest recesses of the forest? Or the rumored residents?

A buzz travels towards the center of the city and alerts locals to the validity of the area. 

Traffic into the clearing doesn’t increase. The anonymous photographer was gracious enough to cover their tracks, leaving the morbidly curious unable to satiate their curiosity as they travel in circles, leaving once the vertigo becomes too much to handle. There are still just as few visitors that actually make it through.

But, the new growth far in the distance has an origin. It’s far older than the photo, but much younger than the rest of the field. No disturbance in growth occurs anywhere else in the field. 

Something’s alive in the dell. 

There’s movement that appears supernatural. Slight shifts in the curtains from nonexistent winds on the interior of the house. Actual figures revealing their silhouettes to a lack of visitors. Unnatural light flickering from the innards of a supposedly abandoned cabin. 

Even through years of careful observation from town residents, no one other than those that enter have exited. 

And then the lumbering camera men arrive, the bulky cameras breaching the private, secluded field, the smooth metallic legs of a tripod digging into the grass and dirt, crushing a few small flowers. The video zooms in, the operator disrupting the view as the lens focuses onto the house.

Aimed straight at the cabin, they catch a glimpse of the well speculated figure in one of the second floor windows, heaps of moss adorning the border. The silhouette looks either out the window or further inside the house, the greyed out figure stagnant as another taller one joins the figure. And the fuzzy figures join into one. 

The video cuts off there, spreading around the town in greens and browns, and cream curtains fill screens in a strange uncertainty. It sends an uproar around the city with new information on a mystery from so long ago. 

It seems to confirm for some that something’s definitely alive in the forest. Two of them, even. Frenzied ventures into the forest as travelers vaguely recall their paths to the clearing. But each recollection remembers the true destination differently, varying in the obvious sector of paths, but even in the true orientation of the house and their position as they somehow all end up in the same spot, the cabin overlooking their vision as they enter the field of flowers. 

And when the newcomers arrive to capture the same scene and watch the mystery transform to reality, no sign of life appears to exist inside the glade beyond the insects flying around their heads and crawling around the grass.

Thick, grey clouds loom over the dell, starting with a slight drizzle and eventually intensifying to a torrential downpour. Cameras that have returned to catch the same sight they’ve seen before wash out and retreat back into the forest, unprepared for the sudden shift to inclement weather. 

Sparing a few glances back at the cabin, they notice the figure, not knowing for sure if it’s facing them, but feeling the burning of eyes through thin curtains.

They run, the equipment slick with rain water, a bolt of lightning hitting off in the distance.    
  
Something’s off about the clearing. Not that there are human figures in the window of a house from which no one has ever seen anyone come or leave. It’s the strange happenings that have slowly grown more apparent as the industrialized city slowly chips away at the forest. It starts as the strange fog that settles in around the forest to the apparent change in layout as recollections of the forest merge into an unnavigable mess of confusion. 

And as the rain clouds shroud the blue sky in a deep—nearly black—grey, the infinitesimal movement behind the curtains allow the faintest hints of a person to be seen. A thin arm peeks through the slightest gap in the cream colored curtain, just beyond the rolled up sleeve of a sweater. Not a second later, another one joins it, the two figures connecting to two tangible arms.

A person’s alive in the cabin. Not only that, two people are alive in the cabin.

There’s a strange intimacy that occurs when no one’s looking, where the bright innards of the cabin spills out to reveal the gentle embrace of the two shadow people off in the distance, lying down on the furniture. 

They’re alive. They have to be, even if all people ever see are one or both of the figures facing either towards them or away from them. And it’s usually impossible to tell, that is, until the heavy rain pours down on the growing crowd of visitors, and a sharp gaze pierces through the fabric. It’s the natural indication of sight, of being. They have to be alive.

The heavy downpour doesn’t deter people from making their ways over not even hours after the storm ends. Sloshing puddles decorate the once colorful field, dampening the bright colors in a muddy shade. 

It starts with the dripping of dew hanging off tall blades of grass falling down into the puddles to form small but resounding ripples. Then the distance of residual rain water from the leaves of trees down to the ground from feet into the sky, falling in at higher speeds. Then the pounding of foreign footsteps pounding into the ground, shifting the water in strange waves. And finally, the entrance of those people, splashing the filth of the streets and the muddy detritus into the somewhat clear puddles soaking into the soil below. 

They’re more prepared this time, though, armed with a smaller camera to mount onto the branch of a tree while also bringing the same large camera, now covered in a thin, white, plastic sheet, loosely held on with neon gaff tape.

Against the towering brown trunks of the trees and the tall, green grass, the sleek metal, glass, and plastics all beneath the canopy of a white, plastic film stands out strangely, even beneath the shade of a large tree. 

Hours of meaningless footage recording nothing but a static scene, shifting only with the slight breeze that rustles the leaves and grass, pass before they finally see the slightest hint of movement in the house, and it’s the smallest iota of change in the tint of light emitting from the window, barely off from the slight warmth emitted only by a particularly bright light bulb.

Jovial laughter is barely picked up by the camera’s sensitive microphone, hidden barely beneath the casual conversation of the camera crew. 

The two that reside in the cabin are mocking them. 

The over-serious investigators of the clearing as the city attempts to reveal the rest of the world to it fail to notice the oddities of being devoted to a situation that would be dealt with in the matter of a few months, maybe a year or two. 

It’s two young men that wander around the cabin, falling into the big, albeit dusty, bed. Dark brown hair spills onto the white pillows, melting into a conglomeration on the bed, the locks of hair interlacing in the break between the two pillows while facing each other, dark brown, almost black eyes gazing into slightly lighter. 

Though the visitors from within the city rustle the grass and trample dried leaves and fallen sticks, a greater noise rumbles along the distance, far beyond the depths of the forest. 

The outside draws nearer. 

But that doesn’t matter. The ephemeral pulchritude of the secluded clearing still persists, however short lived as it may be. And it’s still inhabitable and bearable. Barely noticeable beneath the walls of the cottage.

There’s an embrace where neither the lights nor windows can reach, and the two sit along the side of a slowly decaying wall. One taller than the other, they rest, undisturbed by the contrasting cacophony outside as the shorter leans in, the scent of petrichor permeating into the air in gentle wafts of wind, and leans a forehead on the other. 

With ease, the shorter puts a thin hand on the other’s cheek, just barely above the jawline, the sleeve of a borrowed sweater riding down the arm, revealing a pale expanse of clear skin, and joins their lips in a sensual embrace. 

The grey doesn’t seem nearly as close when the flurrying atmosphere colors them in the same technicolor flowers growing just outside the house. Effervescent emotions fizzle out into the open air, grazing the balled fist of a camera man running behind the rest of the crew.

It opens up the sense of unmitigated intimacy that those who come to discover what’s hidden interrupt by their mere presence. But the tantalizing curiosity keeps people returning, even with the permeating guilt of their intrusion. 

The guilt doesn’t matter. There’s an anxiety to see more, to find more before the entire clearing is destroyed to make room for a new sect of the town itself. Industrial smoke drifts in.

The noise of loud saws grow nearer by the day, and one of the figures reach their head out the hinged window, dark brown irises observing the darkness incoming, sawdust rising into the air even in the doldrums of zephyr, and the remaining people capture the sight in perplexed yet excited awe. 

Photos of the young man cycle around the area, creating more questions than it answers. 

The young man appears no different from any other man living in the city, the only difference being the complete absence of a sustainable food source and isolation from the world, except for the other person. 

Something doesn’t align with the knowledge the townsfolk have, but the dent into the forest the machines have already made into the incredibly large forest has created a somewhat clear path as hints of the open air in front of more trees flow between the gaps between the trees. The dense fog far into the forest has faded to nothing more than a slightly muted tint in the air. 

Over the span of mere weeks, the progress the city had made, with the noise of construction obstructing any peace that had existed before, had nearly exposed the clearing to the rest of the world. The bright scene beyond the trees gleams a lustrous sheen, like hitting diamond in the mines after years of nothing. 

Even still, the two in the cabin stroll past the window like they’re actually outside, witnessing the field of flowers shine bright, almost neon hues under bright rays of sunlight, laughing silently at a young person’s attempts to get a closer look at them and the decaying chalet only to fall into a small dip in the muddy terrain, the tall grass hiding the distinction from view. They give the people the illusion of occupancy, hiding in the anonymity curtains bring.

Dark moss coats the house in a dirty, grey-ish brown color, parts of the outer walls chipping slightly to reveal the soggy, waterlogged wood infested with similarly colored pests. And a small bird swoops down from a nearby tree, faint chirping in the distance, and picks up the insects crawling around, only visible by the shifts of sunlight on their bodies as they move around. A branch falls in the distance with a resounding thud, sending a flock of dark crows flying away, loud, sharp cries echoing into the air.

The slit in the upper curtain grows wider, allowing dark brown eyes to gaze out into the world curiously, taking in the source of the noise, and staring in unperturbed awe as the grey that seemed so far away mere days ago grows closer and closer. 

For a moment, they’re blank, staring into the open, but not quite seeing the view, and the next, long arms snake around the shorter, staring out the same slit before hands make their way up to the shorter figure’s eyes, guiding them carefully back inside, and closing the window. 

A hornet’s nest settles in the crevices where none can reach, and a bird’s nest sits comfortably atop the dark brown structure, at peace with the perfect tranquility despite the still somewhat distant sawing an thuds on the large trees that once spanned a few miles around the clearing that now cover almost half of what they used to in one small area and the harsh rumble of construction, tearing asphalt and the laying down of foundations for further expansion. 

The ground shudders in apprehension. 

The house creaks in consternation.

Windows ripple between the two opposing forces.

Two glasses shatter onto the long decayed floor. 

The first machine breaches the cusp of the clearing where trees meet an open field. Although trees are still toppling in a strange, slowly widening trail behind it, the outside finally reaches the foreign innards hidden by forest. 

A grey sheen from the city colors scene darker in the slow wilting of plants as the summer deadens into autumn and the increasing patches of moss and vines growing up and along the sides of the wooden house. 

Life inside the house halts, stopping atop a wrinkled duvet, dark brown hair sinking into the dark fabric, the taller curling around the shorter, and the wind outside falls still if not for a moment. The evanescent lulls in movement serves as direct contrast between the active saws charging through the forest from the city. 

None see any movement in the windows or any other oddities as the flowers wilt and crumble onto the ground, exposing hints of colorful plastic that have fallen into the tall grass, long after the first machine hits the clearing, the rift slowly opening between the city and the clearing

The grey tramples the flowers and grass, machines of great sizes rolling in through the small, but expanding gap between the trees. Darkening skies and falling leaves color the various shades of green in a slick falsehood, falling to the ground in muted browns. Deadening weather fades the lush sunlight into a gentle, chilled sky. 

The end begins before they know it, but nothing out of the ordinary has been observed even weeks previous. 

When the time comes and machines come pouring in with the intent to destroy, a lone man cracks the back door open with a great deal of force, as if the two figures were holding him out, and looks around. The thick, aging scent of death permeates into the air, cascading out the door and into the open air and filling the rest of the house in a gentle breeze. When he goes up to the room where the figures were reported to be most, he finds nothing. Thick cobwebs covered in layers of dust decorate door frames and archways while the entire rest of the inside is covered in moisture damage and age. He makes his way to the windows and looks through the thin, off-white curtains, and reaches his hand out.

The curtains draw open, revealing aging wood and the decaying innards of a long abandoned house. And a framed photo of two young men, who are laying in the middle of a field of overgrown grass, torn slightly across the top, reaching the eyes of those who recognize them.

Baekhyun Byun and Chanyeol Park. Presumed missing seventy years ago. Presumed dead no longer than two years later. 

The sodden wooden roof caves inward.

**Author's Note:**

> this was somewhat base off of a few of the short stories in "winesburg, ohio" by sherwood anderson, specifically the two consecutive stories "hands" and "paper pills." (because i had only read those two at the beginning of the writing process, and then i went ham on actually writing the thing)
> 
> i wanted the third person narrator to act as a camera coming in from the outside before it finally reveals the true status of these two dead people. i love the idea of a story conveyed without dialogue. and, although i'm not a very good writer, i wanted to try my hands at something like that.
> 
> finally, i wanted to tie in shitty metaphors to hint at baekhyun and chanyeol being dead as in the house is basically "dead," so why shouldn't they be too? and that's alongside the shift to autumn near the end of the thing. (lol, like the scarlet ibis, "summer was dead, but autumn had not yet been born..." because haha english class)
> 
> tl;dr: this was just an attempt to make an english teacher's wet dream and probably ended up being an english teacher's worst nightmare.


End file.
